“How much website traffic does PR bring to my brand?”
“How much exposure can I gain using a PR agency?”
“Can a PR campaign fix my bad sales?”
Measuring the effectiveness of a public relations campaign has always been controversial. How does one measure it? On what dimensions should the data be measured? What are some of the quantifiable indicators that we can use?
Piccolo PR is a full service PR and communications agency based in Melbourne, Australia. As industry professionals, we’ve got all the answers you need. So let us break it down for you.
- Brand awareness
Having a strong brand awareness strategy increases familiarity and nurtures trust. If your target audience bonds with you and trusts you, then they’re more likely to buy from you. Begin by developing your own, distinct brand narrative. The next step is to figure out how to tell your story using different content types and channels. Then, determine your target audience. A PR campaign will place a strong emphasis on your various customer profiles, supported by a clear set of compelling brand messaging that engages your audience and convinces them to ‘stick’ to your brand. Communicating your point of difference authentically and concentrating on the challenges of your target consumers is critical in a PR campaign for brand awareness. This ensures that when potential consumers have particular demands, your brand will come right to mind – they will realise the usefulness of your content or product information.
- Number of publications
The number of press articles about your brand or product is one of the most effective ways to gauge the effectiveness of your PR campaign. A significant amount of publicity through reputable media outlets will easily escalate the audience for your brand. Publications with a large readership base can drastically increase brand recognition. However, as tempting as it sounds to post articles on every good website, it’s recommended to only stick to websites where readers are likely to be interested in your brand.
- Social media exposure
In the modern technology-driven world, social media influence is growing rapidly. The simplest way to check engagement on your post or message is to look at your social media reach. The number of new followers and reach on your social media platforms can be used to examine the performance of your PR campaign. Comparing the number of followers on multiple social media platforms before and after the campaign is one of the simplest ways to evaluate social media reach. Most major social media networks such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube include built-in tools to help analyse your reach.
- Media content analysis
The content of the message can be both direct and indirect. Regardless, a message with a good logic flow is more capable of increasing brand awareness and attracting potential clients. A positive image of your brand will build a better reputation in the mind of potential clients. It may not happen immediately, but the sales will be growing steadily over time.
- Media impressions
In order to estimate how many people have heard about your brand in a specific time frame, you can use a calculation known as a media impression. This metric is a helpful tool for assessing the success of a PR campaign. However, media impressions aren’t always accurate, so be cautious when interpreting them. For example, if your story is published in Forbes which has around 144 million views per month, it does not equal views. Media impressions may sound amazing to people you’re reporting to, but they won’t help you scale success in the long run. This isn’t everything, though – what’s more important is who is talking about you and whether these discussions can influence more people. When readers see Forbes associated with your brand, they’ll think: “Forbes reports this brand, it must be good.”
Remember – Perception is Reality!
- Brand mentions
Brand mentions are the total number of times in a certain time frame that a specific product, hashtag or the name of your business has been used on social media, blogs, forums, or other online platforms. A well-managed PR campaign may instantly raise the number of brand mentions on other websites and social media. A rise in brand mentions following the launch of a campaign directly leads to increased awareness and indicates that the PR team is doing a good job. However, statistics show that 96% of people who mention companies online do not follow the brands’ owned profiles. Therefore, in order to know what people are saying about your brand online, you need to take a closer look at such unbranded social media users.
- Website traffic
Despite most PR campaigns being conducted on social media platforms, your website is still a crucial venue for PR outreach. An effective technique to assess the performance of a PR campaign is to compare website traffic before and after the campaign. As a result, did the website’s traffic increase? This is also a strong indicator of how effective the PR effort was, given how difficult it is to get people to click on a link to an external website. Tracking website content is simple; you can use a service like Google Analytics to acquire a better understanding of your site traffic analytics.
Conclusion
Given the growing power of social media, the significance of effective public relations cannot be overstated. Measuring the efficacy of a public relations strategy is not an easy task. However, using these guidelines, you may be able to establish whether your company’s PR campaign efforts are beneficial.
